Time again for the song of the week from my iPod.

Ian Van DahlIan Van Dahl is a vocal trance group from Belgium. The group’s music is best described as electronic dance party music. The group was hugely popular in Europe and had only limited success in the US. Before the group broke up in 2008, it’s members were Christophe Chantzis, Erik Vanspauwen, Peter Luts, David Vervoort, and Annemie Coenen. Peter Luts and Annemie Coenen have since formed the group AnnaGrace which is also a dance party electronica group with Coenen singing and Luts doing the engineering.

The group had released two albums and AnnaGrace has an album being released this year. The first album, Ace, was released in 2001 and has been certified gold. The single “Castles In The Sky” was the biggest hit from the album selling more than 4 million copies. The group’s second album, “Lost & Found”, reached #13 on the U.S. Top Electronic Albums chart.

The song “Castles in the Sky” was re-engineered by Tony Tran, an American disc jockey mixing under the pseudonym DJ Mystik. In the age of Napster, many users changed the name of the artist on “Castles in the Sky” to DJ Mystik in order to defeat blocking filters.

Castles in the Sky
Do you ever question your life?
Do you ever wonder why?
Do you ever see in your dreams…
All the castles in the sky

Oh tell me why
Do we build castles in the sky?
Oh tell me why
All the castles way up high
Please tell me why
Do we build castles in the sky?
Oh tell me why
All the castles way up high

Do you ever question your life?
Do you ever wonder why?
Do you ever see in your dreams…
All the castles in the sky

Oh tell me why
Do we build castles in the sky?
Oh tell me why
All the castles way up high
Please tell me why
Do we build castles in the sky?
Oh tell me why
All the castles way up high

This is the original version of the song as recorded by Ian Van Dahl. The vocals are by Marsha (Martine Theeuwen, who left the group shortly after the vocals were recorded), not Annemie Coenen who joined the group after the single was released but before the album was recorded. However, the woman in the video is neither Marsha nor Annemie Coenen. She is Cindy Mertens but she was never part of the group and was used only for this video. Apparently she was a very poor lip syncher so she was not able to produce the effect the group was looking for in the video. So that means that the vocals for the single and the video are by Marsha, the vocals for the album are by Annemie Coenen, and the woman in the video is Cindy Mertens. Confused?

This is the remixed version by DJ Mystic: